


The Touch Of Softest Petal

by AetherAria



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Ficlet Collection, Kisses, Lizard Kissin' Tuesday (Penumbra Podcast), Multi, Second Citadel (Penumbra Podcast)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-07-27 04:57:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20040289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AetherAria/pseuds/AetherAria
Summary: A collection of ficlets, all prompted from a kiss themed prompt list on tumblr.





	1. Giggly Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> I figured I should actually collect these all together, and since I didn't have anything BIG for Lizard Kissin' Tuesday this week, here they are! Each fic is a standalone moment, and each sits around 300 words. Bite sized, ha. Hope you enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by an anonymous tumblr user!

Arum tucks his nose into the crook of Rilla’s neck, arms winding around her and gathering her close, and nuzzles into her warmth. She smiles automatically, partially because it’s _adorable_ how tightly he clings to her and partly because _oh_ it feels good to have all of his arms around her like that-

And then he flicks his tongue out, and it’s an innocent gesture, gathering her scent in a way as natural to him as blinking or sighing, but the forked tip tickles the joint between her neck and her shoulder, and she breathes out a sharp burst of laugher at the fluttering touch.

Arum blinks and pulls his head back, raising an eyebrow at her as she stifles her laughter in a smile.

“That-” _tickles_, she stops herself from saying, because her boys are under the carefully maintained impression that Rilla Is Not Ticklish.

Arum’s eyes flash with understanding regardless, and his grin slips wide and dangerous, and he _is_ still holding her rather snugly in his four strong arms as he leans down more deliberately to flick his tongue butterfly-light against her shoulder, her throat, her collarbone, sending Rilla instantly into a fit of high, squealing laughter.

“Damien!” Rilla half-yelps, half-laughs. “Damien, I need you to come _slay a monster for me_-”

She dissolves into undignified, snorting guffaws and Arum relents, his own laughter grown too wild for him to continue his teasing, and when Damien bolts in to find them, it takes both his tangled lovers ages to still their laughing tongues for long enough to explain.


	2. Drunk Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by tumblr user packitandgo!

Mead of monster make, Damien decides, is quite decidedly more potent than human mead. Or, perhaps, that is only the case with the heady amber brew that Arum’s own hives produce. Either way, Damien sways on his feet when he stands to fetch a new bottle, and Arum is beside him in the space of a heartbeat, his fascinating monstrous speed allowing him to move in such a way that the in-betweens are nigh invisible to Damien’s own eyes. Arum steadies him, two hands on his back, one holding his wrist gentle like a partner in dance, and Damien leans into his embrace, less for the support and more because-

He leans his back into Arum’s sturdy chest, twisting just enough in his arms that he can look up into Arum’s violet eyes, dancing with fond amusement, and

(_even a fall may end safe / even claws may catch, careful_)

and Damien is flush with love and words and honey wine and when Damien goes up on his toes to press his lips to Arum’s mouth, the monster inhales with sharp-sweet surprise. Damien kisses him again, and he makes another soft noise, and (_summon sweetness from a smile sharp enough to draw blood_) Damien’s dizzy mind can’t understand why he didn’t start doing this much, _much_ earlier.

“Told you he’s cute when he’s drunk,” Rilla’s voice says, flush with humor and mead as well, and he blinks back to himself enough to see her where she sits, watching the pair of them with a glass in hand and love in her eyes.


	3. Seductive Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by tumblr user shorter-than-her-tbr-pile!

Damien is so engrossed in his writing that he is unaware of Rilla’s presence until the hands on his shoulders slide up to his neck, tilting his head deliberately up and away from his drafts. He makes a noise, wordless surprise as he surfaces from his mental sea of synonyms and symbol, and she stands to his side and leans down closer to him, her eyes dark, and amused, and sparking with a familiar fire that lights his entire body to attention instantly.

“You look so _pretty_ when you’re focused,” she murmurs, her fingertips skating along his jaw, his blushing cheek, into his hair to tangle there. She leans closer, purposeful and slow, and pauses just shy of a kiss that Damien is already _desperate_ for. “Mind if I interrupt that focus for a bit?”

It takes Damien a moment to put words on his tongue, so preoccupied is he with the desire to be otherwise employing it. “I would delight in nothing more,” he says, surprised by his own breathlessness, and with that little encouragement she closes the gap. One skillful hand eases the papers from his slack grip and sets them aside, while the other scratches through his curls, tugging and angling his head back so she can kiss him more easily where he sits. Her kiss _scorches_, lips and tongue hot and determined, and then her teeth sink exquisitely into his bottom lip until he gives a soft sort of moan.

She releases him and leans slightly away, grinning and sly. “Are you sure I shouldn’t let you get back to-”

He pulls her back down before she can finish the thought.


	4. Kiss on the Neck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by an anonymous tumblr user!

“Humans are such ridiculous creatures,” Arum mutters.

Damien, sitting sideways in Arum’s lap on a leafy sort-of loveseat with an arm wrapped around his shoulders, raises an amused eyebrow, and the lizard growls as he scrapes careful claws through Damien’s hair.

“Wretched, furless, scaleless things. Completely disgusting, _takatakataka_.”

“Mmhmm,” Damien agrees, letting his head drop to rest on Arum’s shoulder, nuzzling his cheek against the scales there.

“Strange, incomprehensible mammals,” Arum continues, the edges of his voice going rough and his frill rising with a flutter as Damien hums another indulgent, agreeing noise into the crook of his neck. “R-ridiculous.”

“If you say so, my lily,” Damien says indulgently, and then he starts to press his lips to Arum’s neck, slow and gentle.

Arum bites down a whirring, breathy _noise_, and instead says, “Utterly _vile_, the- the nonsense things you deign to use your mouths for, completely absurd-”

“Ah,” Damien says, kissing Arum’s throat one more time before he pulls back away. “My apologies-”

“Don’t you _dare_,” Arum growls, and clutches Damien tighter in his arms. “Don’t you dare stop.”


	5. "I'm Sorry" Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by tumblr user ellegamgee!

Damien holds Arum’s hand as they laze in the late evening sun, his poetry set aside for the moment so he can examine Arum’s claws in the hopes of finding the proper simile for his latest piece. Damien presses his thumb into Arum’s palm, slides his fingers slowly out until he can slip them between Arum’s, and then he presses, flexing and curling his clawed hand in a way that must be rather soothing, judging by the low purr that starts to rumble Arum’s chest.

The lizard slits his eyes open, just enough that Damien can see the thinnest sliver of violet, cut through the middle with a shard of liquid black, but Arum doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move to stop the poet as he continues his slow, gentle examination of Arum’s hand. He slips the pads of his fingers over his scaled knuckles, turning his hand and fascinating in the fragile mechanism of his wrist, in the gentle, cool texture of his scales. He skates his fingers further up, along his leanly muscled forearm, light as lace, until he reaches the scar.

The scar: it is smaller in fact than it is in the landscape of Damien’s mind, evidence of a deliberate harm that Damien once inflicted on someone he now holds dear in the deepest depths of his heart. It interrupts the beautiful, rippled surface of Arum’s scales in a short line above the crook of his elbow, well-healed but still present, and Damien has to take a steadying sort of breath and focus on the feeling of Arum’s living body beside his own to keep the overwhelming weight of his mistakes from screaming through his mind.

Instead of succumbing to regret, Damien brushes his thumb gently over the ridged line once, twice, and then he leans down and presses his lips to the scar, hoping to pour out the emotion swelling within him through the gentleness of the kiss.

Arum’s eyes are fully open, now, and he stares at Damien with something in his eyes that Damien cannot entirely place.

Then, with as much care as if he were moving the thinnest spun glass, Arum lifts Damien’s arm and echoes Damien’s kiss. He nuzzles along the line of Damien’s matching scar, then flicks his tongue across it, as if with his kiss alone he could soothe the old wound away.


	6. "I almost lost you" Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by bluerayofsunshine on tumblr!

The story is sweeping; it’s magnificent, of course, the way Damien tells it, even accounting for the breaks where Rilla has to step in to explain bits Damien hadn’t been there to see, and by the time they get to the point in the tale where Rilla and Caroline popped through the portal to the swamp, Arum looks like he’s set to fidget right out of his scales. Damien hasn’t noticed- he’s too caught up in the words, but Rilla easily catches the way Arum is curling his own tail around his ankle, how his frill keeps shivering by his neck, how his eyes keep darting to Rilla and then away, how all four of his hands keep flexing in her direction, but retreating before he reaches for her in earnest.

Rilla decides to make things a bit easier for him. She reaches out herself, snagging one of his clawed hands in her own and startling him out of his agitation.

“Hey,” she says softly, and Damien breaks off from his synonym search as she meets Arum’s eyes. “You okay over there?”

He scoffs, eyes flicking away again, but he does not pull his hand from hers. “Of course I am… _okay,_” he says. “That was never in any doubt.” He pauses, as if that could be the end of the thought, but Rilla raises an eyebrow and after only a moment Arum breaks, continuing, “But apparently- apparently, Amaryllis, you were nearly _cast entirely off the of edge the world_.” His hand flexes in hers, something like a squeeze, but not so deliberate. “In fact, you _were_ cast off the edge of the world. It is a fluke, an outright _miracle_ that you are not dead.”

“I’ll admit,” Rilla says with a wry smile, “there have been a lot more close calls lately for all of us than I’m really comfortable with-”

“No-” Arum shakes his head, then lifts another hand and hesitates for only a moment before he cups her cheek. “Amaryllis, you- I knew that all of you would be going up against that monster. I knew there was a slim chance you would succeed. But the lot of you tenacious creatures _overcame_, and I thought- I didn’t realize- I didn’t realize how close… how _catastrophically_ close…”

He trails off, apparently at a loss, and when Damien steps closer, there is a recognition in his eyes alongside worry as he watches Arum struggle to fit the words to his tongue.

“_Catastrophically close_ is a rather apt way to describe the situation,” Damien agrees in a low, feeling voice. “The moment when Rilla fell was the most terrifying of my life. More terrifying even than when the bug itself had its metaphorical pincers within my skull. I thought... for that one, endless moment, I thought-”

“Any of us could have died plenty of times in the last, like, _week_,” Rilla deflects, a little overwhelmed by the attention.

“Nearly lost you entirely,” Arum murmurs, “before I even had the chance...”

Rilla blinks, looking up into his violet eyes, and oh… oh _Saints_. She’s used to intensity from Damien, of course, but she didn’t know that Arum could look at her like _that_.

“Hey,” she says, a little uneven but still gentle, “hey, I’m totally fine. Minus the ankle, I mean, but- we’re all fine.” She cups his cheek like he is cupping hers, and tries to set him at ease with her smile.

“We made it through, despite all odds,” Damien chimes softly, coming close enough to caress Rilla’s shoulder, and Arum hisses low, leaning his cheek into Rilla’s hand. “You have the chance, now.”

“You’ve got the chance,” Rilla agrees with a nod. “So, what exactly were you worried about missing out on, if you never saw me again?”

His expression tilts a little wry with her teasing tone, but the intensity there does not fade. He pulls her closer with his two remaining hands, tilts her head up with gentle claws, and then he leans down to press his mouth against her own, determined and tender.

It’s not quite a kiss, not quite a nuzzle; his thin lips feel cool, and textured, and strange.

Rilla’s eyes slip closed as she hums in delight and relief, and she is so, _so_ glad that the three of them have this chance, and so many more chances waiting in their future.


	7. Kiss on the Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not prompted and not on the list, actually. This one is a gift for @shorter-than-her-tbr-pile on tumblr. <3

Arum has observed both of his humans lavish a cavalcade of different ‘kisses’ upon both himself and each other in their as-of-yet short time together. The poet in particular is creative in this as in all things, and Arum has been doing his best to take note. He is still new to this arrangement, obviously, and his humans have more practice with the physicality of a romantic relationship than he does.

There are very few ways he can emulate their strange, affectionate face-nuzzling, and frankly the actions are ridiculous anyway and he has no cause to trouble himself over trying to return their gestures.

Though... he _does_ find himself thinking about their kisses rather more often than he would ever outwardly admit.

Damien paces back and forth on the balcony, muttering an alliterative litany to himself, and on a strange sort of whim Arum reaches out from his spot lounging nearby and grasps Damien’s hand, pulling him to a stop, pulling him out of his circling thoughts.

And then Damien looks at him, bemused, and Arum didn’t really have a next step planned. He has, however, been thinking about the human obsession with _kissing_ again, and there is one that he has seen Damien grace Amaryllis with fairly frequently, and-

Arum lifts Damien’s hand, and their eyes fix together as he brushes his mouth across Damien’s knuckles, the heat of his skin tickling Arum’s scales.

There is a heartbeat of pause before Damien’s face flushes dark and he stammers out a laughing, delighted exclamation, squeezing Arum’s hand.

Arum is cultivating foolish habits, he thinks as he nips at Damien’s knuckles to make him laugh again, but Arum will endure any depth of foolishness to make his humans look at him with that much love in their eyes.


	8. "I've Missed You" Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by bluerayofsunshine on tumblr! This one is, essentially, a DIRECT epilogue to my other fic, Crawling Along The Hours To You, which might explain why it's so comparatively long.
> 
> EDIT - NOW WITH ACCOMPANYING ART???? the WILDLY skillful @ladywhitetower on tumblr Did An Art for this fic and I'm gonna be staring at it forever, now, and you probably should too, please find and enjoy it here:
> 
> https://ladywhitetower.tumblr.com/post/186846730164/youve-been-dreaming-about-me-everyone-check

Rilla is _exhausted_ by the time she and her escort (who she unfairly wishes would sink into the damned dirt right about now, considering the fact that _without_ an escort, she could simply portal right back to the Keep without interference) finally, _finally_ come around the bend and see her hut waiting for her. She gives as polite a goodbye as she can muster at this time of night (it is nearly four in the morning now, since the moment she recognizes a familiar road, she refuses outright to allow her escort to stop her from powering through the sunset, leaving him no choice but to either abandon her as a charge or just do his best to keep up in the darkness) and when her own door is safely closed behind her she sags against it and exhales all the air in her lungs.

Dilemma: Rilla wants, very badly, to sleep right this instant, to curl up in her own bed and just pass out, but with equal strength she wants to go to the Keep and find Arum at least, and if she’s lucky Damien will be there too. Immediate, much-needed sleep versus comfort for her heartsickness.

The only thing that tips the scales, eventually, is the knowledge that she’s covered knees-down in mud from the road, sweaty with a full day and change of travel, and if she waits until morning she can at least surprise them all fresh and clean and rested.

She sighs again, decides that she’s going to sleep until at _least_ noon, and then she lights a lantern so she doesn’t trip over the piles of research and books in her front room as she wobbles in the direction of her bed.

When she pushes the bedroom door open, though, her bed is already otherwise occupied.

The light from the lantern reveals both her lovers, wrapped up together with her sheets kicked down to the bottom of the bed. Damien curls against Arum’s chest, his hair loose and soft over his brow, and Arum’s arms circle him, their legs tangle together, and Arum’s tail is curled loose around Damien’s ankle, and Rilla has to clutch at her chest for a moment because it feels like her heart is trying to leap from her ribcage to join the pair of them in her bed.

She takes a shuddering, grateful breath, and then she quietly kicks off her muddy boots and her traveling clothes before she blows out the lantern and tiptoes over to join them.

Her bed is smaller than the one they usually share in the Keep, but Rilla is determined, and creative, and too tired to abide by the limitations of the surface area of her mattress. She crawls over the pair of them, slipping her hands in between their chests and gently insinuating herself between them. She’s almost completely managed it before Arum inhales, his eyes slitting open in the dark and his hands finding her sides, pulling her automatically closer.

“_Amaryllis_,” he hisses, pressing his snout into her neck and rumbling low in his chest. “I thought I was… _dreaming_.”

“You’ve been dreaming about me?” Amaryllis whispers, teasing, and he growls more distinctly. “I mean, sleeping in my bed and all, that makes enough sense-”

“Honeysuckle,” Arum murmurs, and when he squeezes Damien’s shoulder the knight comes awake gently, and then quickly when Arum continues, “Amaryllis is _home_.”

“_Oh_.” Damien wraps his arms around her from the other side, and she laughs lightly as he squeezes her. “Oh, my heart, my love, my flower- oh Rilla, my Rilla-”

“Hey, hey,” Rilla reaches a hand back, because Damien sounds almost tearful. “Don’t work yourself up too much, Damien. I’m home. I’m not going _anywhere_. It’s the middle of the night, I’m exhausted, and all I want in the world right now is to fall asleep as comfortable as you both looked a few minutes ago. Okay?”

“Of course, my love,” he says in a trembling voice, and her own throat feels tight because- _Saints_ she missed them-

“We will return to sleep in a moment, Amaryllis,” Arum says softly, lifting a hand to cup her cheek, “but we have been without you for- _unreasonably_ long, I would say.”

He presses his mouth against her own in an almost kiss, and he nearly melts against her when she softly kisses back. When they pull away for breath he nudges his forehead against hers for a panting moment before he uses his grip upon her to turn her in his arms. He curls along her back, nuzzling against her shoulder, and the new positioning puts Rilla nose-to-nose with Damien. She giggles at the delighted, surprised breath Damien gives, but the laughter subsides into the next kiss, all the intensity of Damien’s longing pouring into her through the smoldering, tender press of his lips against her own. The kiss breaks, and then Damien kisses the corner of her mouth, kisses her cheek, kisses her nose and then her brow and then her cheek again and Rilla snorts with laughter before she kisses him on the mouth one more time, quick and easy and simple.

“Missed you too,” she says against Damien’s lips, squeezing Arum’s hand, and then she sighs. She settles, into her familiar bed and into their familiar embrace, and she is warm and safe and whole in a way she hasn’t truly been since her departure.


End file.
